IT Terms Glossary – Basic Concepts From The World Of Technology

Glossary

IT Terms Glossary

Active Directory (AD)

Active Directory (AD) is a directory service from Microsoft that is based on the LDAP protocol. It is often used to authorize and authenticate users or devices and can only be used in a Windows OS.
Active/Active Clustering

Active/Active is the name for a cluster architecture in which two or more servers process data simultaneously.
Active/Passive Clustering

A cluster in active/passive mode processes all the data on one “active” server, which is then replicated to a “passive” server or servers. This This essentially creates a functional backup that is ready to take over the tasks of the "active" server in case of failure.
All Flash Storage

All Flash Storage is the term for a disk array that contains only flash storage (SSD). This storage type is also referred to as a Solid-State Array (SSA).
Apache

An Apache HTTP server is a program running on a server connected to an internet network that delivers individual web pages to browsers. This widely used web server is open-source software, making it available to everyone for free.
CIS Benchmarks

CIS Benchmarks represent a set of globally respected best practices for protecting IT systems against cyber threats. Benchmarking generally compares a system to official recommendations from, e.g., hardware manufacturers, software publishers, or institutions.
Cloud Computing

Cloud computing is defined as accessing a service, program, or other software remotely over an internet connection. This model is based on a shared infrastructure of hardware and software resources at the service provider’s data centre, offering high and guaranteed availability.
CSIRT

CSIRT (Computer Security Incident Response Team) refers to a team that handles security incidents on a computer network. This type of group is usually associated with a specific region or organisation. For example, CSIRT.CZ operates in the Czech Republic.
Data Durability

Data durability means data consistency and resiliency to various threats over a long period. It is an important characteristic for data storage since it reflects its ability to cope with, for example, disk failures or fragmented data on a particular storage infrastructure node.
Data Ingestion

Data ingestion is loading data from one or more sources to a target location for further processing. The data ingestion process may also be in real-time or in batches at various intervals. In some cases, a combination of both methods is used.
Free Cooling

Free cooling represents an economical method of cooling data centres by way of taking the warm air out of the data centre and bringing in the cool outside air. This eliminates expensive compressor cooling.
Geo-Cluster

In a geo-cluster, data is stored on two or more nodes in geographically separated locations. If one node fails, the service continues to run from the other location. Thus, geo-clusters are characterised by high availability and help prevent data loss.
HTTP 403 Forbidden

The 403 Forbidden status code (sometimes called “access denied”) is displayed when a user is not authorised to view a certain page. Thus, the server understands the client’s request but cannot comply without authorisation.
HTTP 500 Internal Server Error

The 500 Internal Server Error page signalises an unspecified server-side error. Unfortunately, it is also the most generic 5xx status code, and sometimes, it is difficult to determine the cause.
Hypervisor

Hypervisor is software that can virtualise hardware resources into isolated virtual machines. They can also run different operating systems, meaning multiple operating systems run on a single piece of hardware. However, all applications, services, and development environments are operated in isolation.
IOPS

IOPS is an abbreviation for “input/output operations per second”, which indicates how many input and output requests a device can process per second. IOPS is typically measured, for example, for SSDs or more complex data storage.
LDAP

LDAP (Lightweight Directory Access Protocol) is a protocol that is used to work with data on a directory server. Using LDAP, data can be stored in a tree structure, and then accessed. The most common use case is working with user information.
Microservices

Microservices refer to smaller applications that are interconnected and form the architecture of more complex software. The advantage is faster development and the ability to create and test individual microservices in isolation.
NoSQL

NoSQL is a type of database system that is not based (only) on relational tables, as in the case of SQL. Hence, it is typically used for unstructured data, such as videos or images.
Out-Of-band

Out-of-band is the term for communication outside the main channel or data transmission over another frequency band. Out-of-band is used, for example, in managed servers.
Rack Housing

Rack housing is a kind of server housing where a company uses an entire rack (or a significant part of it) for its servers in a data centre. Enterprises with many servers and technologies, such as routers or switches, mostly use this service.
Redundancy

Redundancy means excess over the necessary. In the context of IT technology, the word redundancy is used in various ways.
RPO

The Recovery Point Objective (RPO) value tells you the point in the past at which data can be recovered; in other words, the maximum amount of downtime and, therefore, data loss. Thus, RPO is a key indicator of data availability.
RTO

The Recovery Time Objective (RTO) value represents the maximum recovery timeframe from an outage. Thus, it is an important indicator of the service level.
SPOF (Single Point of Failure)

The abbreviation SPOF (single point of failure) is a term for a weak spot in the IT infrastructure. When this point of the infrastructure fails, the entire system becomes inoperable.
SQL

SQL stands for Structured Query Language. It is widely used and is used in relational database systems, such as MySQL, PostgreSQL, MariaDB, and SQLite.
SSH

SSH (Secure Shell) is a protocol for encrypted communication between two devices within a computer network. SSH can be used to control the command line or to send data from one device to another, for example, to copy files from a computer to a server.
vCloud Director

The vCloud Director platform enables virtual machine deployment, automation, and management. With its multitenant architecture, hosting providers also use it to administer customer cloud services.
Zero-Day Attacks

A zero-day attack is a type of cyber-attack that exploits a vulnerability in software that the developers are not yet aware of.

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